


Maybe This Is The New Normal

by Snowpiercer



Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Dunkirk Evacuation, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:20:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25705009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snowpiercer/pseuds/Snowpiercer
Summary: How it is after is never how it was before.
Relationships: Collins/Farrier (Dunkirk)
Kudos: 8
Collections: "I don't feel much like myself anymore"





	Maybe This Is The New Normal

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for the prompt! Ngl I whipped this up in 20 minutes in a word sprint but if it needed to come out, it needed to come out I guess, thank u 41 wpm typing! also my apologies if it literally makes no sense.

Before Collins knew it everyone was celebrating in the streets of London. D-Day had been a huge hit to the Germans and it was in everyone’s mind now that perhaps the war might actually end soon. The best part was that he’d flown with Farrier again on that day.

Stalag Luft III had been liberated, and at long, long last his Farrier was home. They were together again. Nothing was the same, but then again, they were still there, still together, so maybe nothing had changed.

Farrier had been in Stalag Luft for _years._ Years of his life spent away from home, away from Collins who at times had felt like a balmy dream and nothing more, how far away he had been and how unreal everything felt, sometimes he hadn’t been sure if Collins really was waiting for him at home or if he was delirious.

Collins had flown all over the world. He had flown in several theatres and his rank had changed drastically from when Farrier left him in the channel that day.

Both of them couldn’t go back to how they were before, but at least, against all odds, they were together again. They lay together on one such summery night with the window open. They were on leave and nobody in the hotels even cared anymore what the pilots on leave did, for the most part they were half ignored, so it wasn’t even difficult for Farrier to slip into Collins’ adjacent room. They lay on the bed together letting the warm air breathe over them, trying to think about the present.

“I don’t feel much like myself anymore,” Collins said quietly.

“Welcome to the business,” Farrier chuckled. The blonde smiled. What did ‘himself’ actually feel like? Who was he before the war? Who was he now? Collins wasn’t sure he actually wanted answers to any of those questions now that he thought about it.

“Do you know who you are?” he asked Farrier. The man exhaled and thought a bit before answering.

“I’m just me.”

Maybe that was the closest either of them would get to normalcy. They were themselves, whoever they were. Maybe not the themselves they were before the war, but in the same vein they weren’t the themselves they were before they’d met each other.

“You see pet, when you’ve… Seen such things, coming back after, normalcy feels strange. Don’t think about it too much, just think about living your life in the best way you can,” the brunette said.

His advice was confusing and didn’t altogether make much sense to Collins, but he hummed nonetheless to show that he was at least listening. He sat up in bed and looked out at the bright moon outside. It had been terrifying, some nights, especially in 1940 just after Farrier had been captured. He’d felt alone, vulnerable, and then when he’d flown in the Battle of Britain, half the time he was so delirious from lack of sleep that he really did think he’d gone mad. In some ways, things were better now. Farrier was alive and for the most part, healthy. Britain hadn’t been taken by the Germans, and now they had them on the ropes. He’d had a tour of other continents free of charge, if he wanted to think about it that way.

For Farrier, not feeling like himself didn’t even matter anymore. He’d gone so long trying to uncover his old self he’d realised that it didn’t exist anymore. Finding his old self was impossible, he had to think about himself now, put effort towards knowing who he was _now_. And now, he was alive, healthy, and he had a partner who, against all odds waited for him to come back, never once gave up on him, and here he was 4 years later laying next to the man. Collins wasn’t the man he fell in love with, he was more. He had grown up so much, but he still had little corners of himself that were the same. In the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled, in the way he clambered out of the plane awkwardly, being on the taller end for pilots, in the way he held Farrier’s hand.

“You’re still you, pet. You’re just a different you, and it’s okay.”

“I want to know where the old me is. I barely remember him.” 

Farrier pressed a hand to Collins’ chest,

“He’s still here. He’s inside, he’s just grown, he’s different in some ways, but the old you is still somewhere inside. He isn’t ‘lost’, he’s just changed,” Farrier tried.

The night ended after more rambled attempts at cheering Collins up, though Farrier knew it wasn’t as simple as that, going through a war couldn’t be talked away in a night, god he knew that. But he wasn’t going to give up on his Collins, just as Collins never did give up on him.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really have much to say on this but thank you for reading!!!  
> [ my tumblr if you're curious ](https://s-n-o-w-p-i-e-r-c-e-r.tumblr.com)  
> (also if you read my other fics, this is a one shot and so far, isn't necessarily connected to them)


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